Tan). 


Duke  University  Libraries 

Resolutions  ado 
Conf  Pam  #251 


HOUSE  OF   REPRESENTATIVES,  Jan.  30,  1865.— Laid  on 
the  table  and  ordered  to  be  printed. 

[By  the  Chair.] 


RESOLUTIONS 

Adopted  by  the  Officers  and  Men  of  (he  rylth   Virginia  Regiment. 


Head  Quarters,  57th  Va.  Infantry, 
Januarij  26,  1865. 

The  following  resolutions  were  read  to,  and  adopted  by  the  officers 
and  men  of  the  fifty-seventh  Virginia  Regiment,  tiiis  day : 

Whereas  the  long  continuance  of  the  bloody  struggle  in  which  we 
have  been  engaged  during  the  last  four  years,  for  liberty,  indepen- 
dence, and  all  the  sacred  rights  dear  to  men  ;  the   many  sacrifices 
which  the  army  and  people  have  been  called  upon  to  make  in  the 
prosecution  of  the  war ;  the  many  trials  and  dangers  which  beset  us 
upon  every  side — and  above  all,  the  reverses  which  have  recently 
befallen  us — disaster  after  disaster  having  followed  each  other  in  rapid 
succession — have  caused  some  of  our  people  to  hesitate,  to  falter  in 
the  brave,  proud  course  which  has  hitherto  been  marked  oiit^or  them, 
and  even  to  think  of  retracing  their  steps,  of  recanting  their  declara- 
tion of  independence  from   the  accursed  Yankee  despotism  which 
once  enthralled  us;  and  actually  to  dream  of  submission  to  that 
enemy  who  has  been  guilty  of  the  most  fiendish  outrages  and  cruel- 
ties;  has  desolated  and  destroyed  our  country,  and  committed  every 
barbarity  recorded  in  the  past  annals  of  rapacity,  wrong  and  rapine. 
Therefore,  for  the  benefit  of  all  such  weak-minded  and  misguided  men, 
whether  in  the  army  or  out  of  it,  by  the  veterans  of  the  57th  Regi- 
ment of  Virginia  Infantry,  who  have,   during  the  whole  war,  been 
breasting  every  danger,  and  always  ready  to  discharge  their  duty  to 
their  country  and  her  sacred  cause: 

1.  Be  it  resolved,  That  now  is  no  time  to  dream  of  submission  and 
reconstruction,  when  the  enemy  is  at  our  very  door;  when  the  blood 
of  our  brothers,  our  sons  and  our  fathers  call  upon  us  for  vengeance ; 
when  their  bones  lie  bleaching  on  every  hill-top  and  valley,  from  the 
blood-stained  heights  of  Gettysburg  to  the  placid  waters  of  the  Rio 
Grande;  while  the  shrieks  of  our  msulted  women  ring  ever  in  our 
ear;  while  the  smoke  of  a  whole  country,  consumed  and  desolated, 
yet  hangs  over  the  lovely  Valley  of  the  Shenandoah,  and  when  the 
flames  which  destroyed  the  whole  of  Central  Georgia  have  scarce 
died  out. 


2.  Reeolved,  That  in  such  a  condition  of  things  as  now  reigns  in 
our  beloved  country,  to  abandon  the  struggle,  and  surrender  the  cause 
which  all  have  so  long  been  engaged  in  defending,  would  be  acts  of 
the  basest  cowardice,  and  would  not  only  cause  our  ruin  as  a  people, 
together  with  the  loss  of  our  national  self-respect,  and  all  that  we 
hold  dear,  but  also  consign  us  and  our  children  to  a  bondage  and 
slavery  which  would  be  insupportably  base  and  degi-ading,  and  hand 
us  and  our  posterity  down  to  the  latest  time,  coupled  with  an  infamy 
to  which  any  thing — even  annihilation  itself — were  far  preferable. 

3.  Resolved,  That  we  take  occasion  to  express  our  unbounded  con- 
fidence in  that  great  and  glorious  patriot.  General  R.  E.  Lee,  who 
has  so  often  led  us  to  victory,  and  our  belief  that  if  sustained  by  the 
people,  the  goverunicut  and  army,  he  will  lead  us  again  to  victory 
and  success,  and  crown  our  efforts  with  an  honorable  independence 
and  lasting  peace ;  that  we  again  dedicate  ourselves  to  the  cause,  and 
express  our  detennination  to  Hght  to  the  lagt,  to  gain  our  freedom,  or 
perish  in  the  attempt. 

t.  Resolved,  That  a  copy  of  this  preamble  and  I'esolutions  be  for- 
warded to  the  Richmond  papers  for  publication  ;  also  to  the  Virginia 
Legislature  and  Confederate  Congress. 

Very  respectfully, 

Your  obedient  servant, 

C.  R.  FONTAINE,  Col. 
Hon.  Tnos.  S.  Bocock — Rkhmmd,  Va. 


penmalipe* 

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